it takes babies of all sizes to make the stupid 'chart'!! the percentiles just tell you how your child relates to the general population of kids their age. if your dc is on the 25%ile, that means that he is bigger (height or weight, depending on the chart) than 25% of the kids his age. if you have a kid in the 95%ile, he is bigger than 95% of the kids his age. it doesn't indicate health per say, but if you see a pattern of jumping around on the 'chart', that might be something to look into. you want to see the baby following his own curve.

ok...she has NO idea what she was talking about! A baby/child is "over weight" ONLY when there %ile wieght is MUCH higher than thier %ile height...IF a child is BIG in BOTH categories, then they are not "fat" they would be tall w/ a weight matching it...for instance, our 1yr old is "above" in height and "below" in wieght...he is SUPER tall an skinny... my oldest was off the charts in both height and wieght BUT evenly, so he ws never "fat", just weighed what he should for being sooo super tall (he was the size of a kindergartener at age 2yrs)...if he would have been "50th" in wieght at that height, he would have been too skinny. Now, if you had a child who was like "5th" in height and "95th" in wieght, you would have an issue with obesity...I hope this makes sense......

Exactly. What in the world was that lady thinking? If he's 80% for BOTH... WTH??? That would mean that he's at his IDEAL weight for his height! FWIW though, they don't have to be over the 50% to be healthy. A baby in the 5%til can be just as healthy as a baby in the 75%til. It doesn't matter *where* on the chart they are, just as long as they don't start to drastically fall or climb - THAT'S what the cart is for. For instance, DS was in the 3%til for the first year of his life. Totally healthy. BUT, he started falling (and falling and falling) until he was way under the chart. But it could be just as bad if he went from 80 to 20, kwim? Either way, it shows that he's just NOT growing. So now he's officially failure to thrive. That's what its really for though... not really to stay over a certain percentile.

When my DS were 0-6 months, they were way up there, like 95th percentile. After they both started crawling, boy did they go down in weight, but their height stayed up there.
But my DH and I are not big people. So really the charts are just to see how your DC is on national average.
I would not listen to that woman.

thats is just crazy1 My son was born at 37 w and was 6#5oz, well by the time he reached 4 months old he was OFF the charts for height and weight..lol
he is 4 now and he is a skinny winnie, babies grow at different rates, just because a child is a chubbly baby doesnt mean they are domed to be overweight or something, that is crazy and i wouldnt be concerned but i wouldve told the nurse she was being rude!

thats crazy ariana was 95% for weight until she started walking and our ped never told us any of that she said it was good because it meant she was thriving and that they dont even worry about any of that until they are older

just wanted to jump in and agree w/ everyone else....that's totally rediculous!!

my daughter has always been above the 95th percentile....i think a lot of that's genentic...apparently i was this way also, but then in grade school thinned out so much that my nickname was "beanpole" for most of my life!

My first has always been 95-98% for both height and weight. He's definitely not fat He's just a big boy. He just turned 3 and everyone always thinks he's older than that (4-5). If he were unhealthy, I'd worry. Perfectly healthy, no concerns here!

I am completely shocked that someone would give medical advice and clearly doesn't even understand basic statistics. I can only assume that this was not the dr but someone who works there? I would seriously consider mentioning it to the dr. I would hate for another mother who doesn't know better to limit her baby's intake because they are "overweight".

Okay, pp have covered the whole overweight thing...I just have to say that 50% percentile and "normal" are not the same thing! 50% percentile and average can be the same things, but "normal" is actually the entire range of the population - the curve that the percentiles come from is call the a "normal distribution". So if you child falls anywhere between 1-99, then they are, by definition, "normal". I was always at the bottom end of this w/ my kids - they would be in the 3rd/5th percentiles and people would always act like that was so awful, and that their 90th percentile baby was "better" or "healthier" than mine. In order for their to even be a 3rd percentile, SOMEONE has to be there! As long as your child looks proportional and is meeting all their milestones, he's fine!